Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Continuity mistake: After Luke's hand gets cut off, in the wide shot where he first comes to a stop after going down the tunnel, you can see his hand. (01:47:55)

Continuity mistake: During the escape from Cloud City, Chewbacca is shooting at the stoormtroopers while R2-D2 tries to open the door. The wall he is hiding behind keeps changing between shots, and the burn mark on the wall also changes a few times, without any laser beams hitting it. (01:47:55)

Revealing mistake: When the stormtroopers are firing at Chewie and the droids and C3PO is yelling at R2D2 about the Millennium Falcon's hyper-drive, there is a shot of Chewie being shot at and the beam putting a hole in the wall. In one shot, it doesn't look much bigger than a pinpoint, but in the next shot, the team at Industrial Lights and Magic were kind enough to add a CGI burn mark, which contracts, almost disappears, and then warps as smoke passes in front of it, wrecking the illusion. (01:48:10)

Continuity mistake: When Luke is holding on to the antennae-like assembly underneath Cloud City, right before and after the hatch closes, the distance between a thin pole and his left arm keeps changing between shots. (01:48:25)

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the last part of the lightsaber duel, and in the following scenes, the color and seriousness of the wounds and bruises on Luke's face keep changing: For example, in the iconic segment where Luke reacts in shock and horror at Vader revealing himself to be his father, the injuries look quite nasty, but when he comes to a stop inside the tunnel after falling from the catwalk, they look far less severe. (01:49:30)

Continuity mistake: When Vader and Luke are duelling on the catwalk over the chasm, Luke lies on his back after he falls. In the first shot, he is lying in front of the steps leading to the round part of the platform, but when he rolls sideways a few seconds later, he is lying on that part of the platform. (01:50:05)

Revealing mistake: Right before Luke nicks Vader in the shoulder with his lightsaber, Vader cuts through a railing. There's a hole in the railing exactly where Vader apparently cuts it. Also Vader's lightsaber never comes into contact with the railing, yet it sparks. (01:50:15)

Continuity mistake: In the shot where Luke's hand is cut off, there's a large gash in his shirt on his left shoulder. In the following shots, the gash is much smaller. (01:50:20)

Continuity mistake: After Vader cuts through the poles at the end of the duel, the burn marks keep changing size and appearance between shots. (01:50:25)

Continuity mistake: In the wideshot where Luke lets himself fall down the pit in Cloud City, Vader lowers his outstretched hand. In the following close-up, he lowers it again. (01:52:10)

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back mistake picture

Revealing mistake: Vader cuts off Luke's hand at the wrist. When Luke is holding on to the antennae-like assembly underneath Cloud City, in one shot, Mark Hamill bends his wrist, revealing the gimmick. (01:52:55)

Continuity mistake: When the Millennium Falcon jumps into hyperspace at the end of the film, Leia, Luke and Lando are in the cockpit, being tossed back. In the next shot of the cockpit, Lando is missing. (01:54:20)

Continuity mistake: When the Millennium Falcon goes towards the bottom of Cloud City towards the end of the movie, we cut to the inside of the cockpit and Lando says "Look, someone's up there" when he notices Luke on the weather vane. At this point you can see Lando's right hand is on Chewbacca's seat when he says this, but when the camera is behind Lando in the next shot, his right hand is no longer on the seat. (01:54:30)

Revealing mistake: When Leia and the crew return to cloud city to rescue Luke from the scaffolding, watch very closely as Lando ascends up the lift, just after the top hatch opens from the overhead angle, you will see that Lando has been replaced with a G.I. Joe look-alike figurine. (01:55:10)

Revealing mistake: When Luke and Leia are watching the Millennium Falcon leave at the end of the movie, its light goes through Luke's arm. (01:56:25)

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Widescreen version: Darth Vader and Admiral Piett are talking on board the Star Destroyer at the end of the movie. In the first shot, a man is standing behind Piett. In the next shot of Vader and Piett, a different man is standing behind Piett. Then, in the third shot of Vader and Piett, the first man is back. The design of the wall and window also differs. (01:57:05)

Continuity mistake: Near the end of the film, when the Millennium Falcon is trying to get away from Vader, there's the scene in which Vader asks the admiral if he disabled the hyperdrive on the Falcon. This scene is backwards, as you can tell by the insignia on the admiral's chest. Normally it should be on the left side of the chest, but in this scene, it is on the right side of his chest. This was fixed on the DVD re-release. (01:57:10)

Continuity mistake: At the end of the movie when the Millennium Falcon is escaping from the TIE fighters we see some going after the Falcon then we see a shot of Vader looking at it - there are now no TIE fighters. They had no time to escape away. (01:57:45)

han_solo_321

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Suggested correction: Actually, the TIE fighters are still there. They're just too small to see.

Continuity mistake: When a one-legged 3PO is standing in the Millennium Falcon, begging R2-D2 to fix him, he is holding the severed leg by the knee, with the foot closest to the floor. Some shots later, he is holding it by the foot, with the knee closest to the ground. (01:59:00)

Revealing mistake: When the medical droid tests Luke's mechanical hand at the end of the film, his thumb moves before the "muscle." (02:00:40)

Dr Wilson

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Trivia: When Billy Dee Williams (Lando) picked up his daughter from elementary school after the film's release, kids would run up to Williams and say "You betrayed Han Solo!"

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Answer: The short, short answer to this is "Yes... from a certain point of view." The long answer is complicated and depends completely on what timeframe you mean by "always." If you're going back all the way to the early rough drafts of the early-mid 70s (which actually resemble Episode I more than they do the Star Wars of 1977), you'll find there's a cyborg father figure protagonist that makes a heroic sacrifice, and then another character that is a "black knight" villain that eventually turns to the side of good near the end. Just to make things more complicated, there is yet another character, a villain by the name of "Darth Vader" that is a human Imperial officer like Grand Moff Tarkin. It may be a stretch to count all that as "Darth Vader was always the father" but the pieces were all there, at least.

TonyPH

(1) Now the earliest explicit mention on any documented material that Darth Vader is Luke's father comes from notes Lucas made outlining the general story of the trilogy and its place in the larger Star Wars saga. These were found in the archives for The Empire Strikes Back, but they are undated and we don't know if they were written before Star Wars (1977) and carried forward, or if they were written afterward. These were found fairly recently (made public in 2010) and as far as I know Lucas has never commented publicly about them.

TonyPH

(3) One thing we know, at least, is that Lucas had come up with the idea of Darth Vader the father before starting work on The Empire Strikes Back. Something incredibly odd, though, is that the first draft written by Leigh Brackett does not feature the twist (and in fact introduces Anakin himself as a ghost); for a long time many fans took this as proof that Lucas hadn't thought of the idea at all by then, but after the series outline was discovered it was made apparent that Lucas simply hadn't told Brackett for some reason. Perhaps he wasn't sure yet that he wanted to go through with it, or maybe at that point he was thinking of revealing it in the third film. Either way, Lucas would write the second draft himself, and that's where the twist first appears in script form.

TonyPH

(2) Something that must be understood about Star Wars (1977) is that it was an ALTERNATIVE to his original plans of a saga. By then he didn't think it was realistic that he would be able to make a long series of many movies, so he came up with a "Plan B": he crammed the general story of the trilogy into one movie. So we know that when Star Wars (1977) was filming, Darth Vader was NOT Luke's father, because this one movie was IT, that was the whole story. But what we DON'T know, is whether that means Lucas had abandoned the idea of Vader being the father in order to simplify the story, or if Lucas simply hadn't thought of that at all just yet.

TonyPH

(2, cont.) On a side note, you can tell by watching Star Wars (1977) how it has condensed the story of the trilogy. The middle portion has the characters trying to escape capture from the Empire while one of them loses a duel with Darth Vader (like The Empire Strikes Back) and the third act is a final battle against the Death Star above a forest moon (like Return of the Jedi). The first act features a member of royalty on the run while a couple of protagonists find the main hero on a desert planet, resembling the original drafts and by extension Star Wars: Episode I. Because of this we've arguably never actually had a "pure" first chapter to the original trilogy, even though Lucas eventually had the film serve this purpose anyway.

TonyPH

Answer: Yes, however, he didn't want anyone to KNOW about it. In fact, the original script said "'Obi Wan never told you what happened to your father.' 'He told me enough... he told me YOU killed him!' 'No, Obi-Wan killed your father'" Even Hamill was only told the real line just before shooting, so his reaction is somewhat natural.

SexyIrishLeprechaun

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